The Veins of You, The Veins of Me
by GilraenDernhelm
Summary: Part 5 of 'Be The Lightning In Me.' Second prequel to 'If I Told You What I've Done.' In the early days of Arya and Jaime's marriage, Cersei devotes her life to tearing them apart. Title is from 'Lifeboats' by Snow Patrol.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Sansa Baratheon was hurting.

After Arya's wedding feast, Joffrey had struck her again and again before taking her every which way in a busy corridor near her chambers. Through her tears and her screams, Sansa had seen servants, wedding guests and even knights passing her and Joffrey by, many of them stopping to stare, several of them laughing, but none of them doing anything to stop him. Not even the knights she had seen had tried to help her. Not even the knights. Not even the women.

When a familiar voice had roared 'what is the meaning of this?' she had cried even harder, this time in relief.

Lord Tyrion had seized the back of Joffrey's breeches, which were tangled about his knees, and had yanked him away from Sansa, tripping him up. As he ordered his personal guard to throw Robert Baratheon's heir into the black cells, Joffrey screeching all the while, Sansa had felt her knees buckling beneath her, and she had sunk to the floor, her head resting against the cold stone wall.

'Pick her up, Bronn!'

The last smells and sounds Sansa recalled as she fainted were the sweat, leather and ale of the arms that lifted her up, and Lord Tyrion's voice commanding that her children be fetched from their chambers and sent to their Stark grandparents at once.

_My children are safe. My children._

When she awoke, it was morning, and she was abed in a room that she did not recognise, wearing a different change of clothes. Lord Tyrion sat watching her from a chair beside the bed, leaping to his feet as soon as her eyes opened.

'Have no fear,' he said gently, 'your old septa has seen to your injuries. It was she who changed your garb.'

Sansa tried to speak several times, but the words would not come. Even opening her mouth seemed like an unspeakable agony. Sansa looked about her.

'You are in my chambers,' Lord Tyrion said, sensing her thoughts, 'and of course you may leave whenever you desire.'

Sansa wished she could tell him that she didn't want to leave; that she only felt safe in the place that he was. He had been so kind to her, and he would very likely be punished for it. She didn't want him hurt because of her. He had been so kind to her.

She tried to speak.

'The – the Queen –'

Lord Tyrion seemed astounded that her thoughts should be with the Queen at this moment.

'The _Queen_, my lady?'

She tried harder.

'The Queen…Joffrey…hurt…hurt you.'

Lord Tyrion smiled at her. He was so ugly. She did not mind.

'A man who rapes his wife deserves worse than a night in the black cells,' he said, a hint of emotion creeping into his voice that he banished immediately by coughing slightly into his fist.

Sansa felt a rush of gratitude towards him, but that did not put her fears to rest. The Queen would not forget this, and neither would Joffrey.

'Hurt…you,' she repeated, looking into his mismatched eyes, trying to make him understand. He was an intelligent man. Why couldn't he understand?

The Imp looked awkwardly away from her, suddenly business-like.

'My nephew's conduct has brought disgrace upon our family. My father will agree with me, and that will be enough for my sister. If it isn't, I will bear my punishment gladly.'

Sansa began to cry again, and Lord Tyrion dried her eyes himself, with surprising gentleness. As he took her hand, she did not pull away from him.

'On my honour as a Lannister,' he murmured, 'he will not hurt you again.'

_That is not a promise you can make._

Suddenly there was a storm of knocking at the door.

'Sansa?' her sister's voice called from the other side of the door, 'Sansa? Are you in there?'

Sansa's command of her speech returned instantly as she got out of bed and tried to move, almost crying out in pain.

_My sister must not know of this. Not now._

Lord Tyrion was blocking her path.

'Sit down, my lady!'

As they listened to Arya trying to break the door down, Sansa addressed Lord Tyrion once more.

'My lord…does she know?'

'I do not see how that is possible.'

'Don't tell her, my lord,' she pleaded, 'Please don't tell her.'

'Come now, my lady!' Lord Tyrion responded, the look on his face implying that he thought she might be mad.

Sansa stiffened regally and drew herself up to her full height.

'It is the morning after my sister's wedding, and she clearly needs my counsel. I refuse to burden her with my troubles when she should be concentrating on her new life.'

The Imp did not look happy, but did as he was bid, opening the door as Sansa got into bed again. Arya veritably flew into the room, wearing nothing but a crumpled sleeping shift.

'Lady Lannister,' he greeted, ushering her into the room and politely averting his eyes.

'Lord Tyrion,' Arya returned politely, clearly in a state of some agitation.

'Arya!' Sansa screeched, scandalised, 'cover yourself up this instant!'

Her sister ignored her.

'Why are you in here?' Arya asked, oblivious to Lord Tyrion's discomfort.

He cleared his throat.

'Lady Baratheon was taken ill after the bedding, and my chambers were the most conveniently situated.'

There was an awkward silence, and Sansa almost laughed. She could think of no chambers in the Red Keep that were less conveniently situated.

'I will leave you,' Lord Tyrion said, bowing and closing the door behind him.

'How did you know I was here?' Sansa asked.

Arya did not reply. She was more agitated than Sansa had ever seen her. Her face was redder than a tomato, and she could not stand still for more than ten seconds together. Nor did she enquire further as to what Sansa was doing in Lord Tyrion's rooms. On a normal day, she would have asked a thousand questions and teased her endlessly.

_Something has happened._

Sansa cleared her throat.

'Arya?'

'Yes?'

'You have…something to discuss with me?'

Arya was pacing and babbling, but clearly trying hard to be coherent.

'He's…he's…he has…he has…'

Sansa was bewildered, but held her tongue as her sister continued.

'He has such a beautiful…such a beautiful…'

_That was one word for it Sansa had never heard before._

'He has such a beautiful…'

'_What_, Arya?'

'He has such a beautiful mind!' her sister blurted at speed, the words tumbling over each other.

Sansa waited for her to continue, but no continuation was forthcoming. She decided to try coaxing a response from her.

'The Kingslayer has a beautiful mind,' Sansa repeated slowly, phrasing the sentence like a statement rather than a question.

'Yes!' Arya affirmed impatiently, as she would with a child who had not being paying attention.

Sansa pressed on.

'And how did you come to this conclusion about his…mind… on your… wedding night?'

Arya's face was red again.

'We played cyvasse. A lot of cyvasse.'

_Cyvasse?_

'Sister…I'm sure I'm not so very old, but is that a euphemism for – '

Arya blushed to the roots of her hair.

'No! Seven hells, no! Though we did do that too, but –'

Sansa did not know how to react. The girl was quite out of countenance. She looked like she'd been concussed.

'Arya –' Sansa began.

Her sister brushed her words aside.

'It's just… the way he thinks, the way he plays; it's so…different, so…not-ordinary…'

'"Not ordinary?"'

'He's…clever.'

Sansa had heard many brides discuss their wedding nights, but 'clever' was not a word she'd heard before in relation to the occurrence. Arya was still pacing.

'And then once we stopped playing cyvasse, he…we…it felt…uh…good.'

Sansa nodded encouragingly.

'Good?'

'Yes.'

'That's a good thing, isn't it?'

Arya seemed confused.

'I think so…good…oh, seven hells, I don't know.'

Arya flung herself into bed beside Sansa and buried her face in the pillows, muttering to herself. Sansa stroked her hair soothingly.

'Arya?' she ventured quietly.

Sansa got a groan in response.

'Are you trying to tell me that you like him?'

Another groan. Sansa waited patiently.

Arya eventually flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She was doing her best not to smile. Sansa could see it, and felt envious. This was how her life was supposed to have been. She felt a rush of happiness for her sister, and a rush of pity for herself that only compounded the pain in her body.

_Focus on your sister_, she told herself, _this is her time._

'Do you like him, sister?' Sansa asked eventually.

'No!' Arya snapped abruptly, 'he's just some old, arrogant, oathbreaking shit who thinks he's the only person on earth who knows how to hold a sword –'

Sansa's heart soared, and she almost burst into tears of joy.

_Gods be good. She _does_ like him._


	2. Chapter 2

Jaime no longer knew what sleeping peacefully meant. The past three months had been an agony. Arya. Cersei. Arya. Cersei. In his more helpless moments, he told himself that he no longer knew whom he should love and whom he should detest. On the rare occasions that he felt surer of himself, he cursed himself for a coward who knew the answers to both questions, but could not admit them to himself.

About a month ago, Arya had told him that she loved him. They had been walking through the gardens of the Red Keep on their way to…something or other…and his young wife had flung Needle into the densely manicured verdure of a perfectly unobtrusive-looking tree, the blade disappearing from view. As they had passed beneath the tree, Needle had fallen deftly back into her hand, its blade puncturing a good-sized apple. Jaime had been rather offended by that.

'Can't you think of anything better to do with castle-forged steel?' he had somewhat adamantly enquired.

'Not after the way you fought this morning,' Arya had snorted in return, biting into her prize.

'Fuck you, Arya!'

'Fuck you too!'

They had had a nice little fight right where they were, his sword flying out of his hand in a matter of minutes (he had let her win) and she had jumped on him like a child, sending him crashing onto the grass and pinning his arms down with her tiny hands.

'Yield,' she had demanded furiously.

'Isn't letting you win enough?' he had replied, making no attempt to move.

That had angered her, as he had known it would.

'You were _not _letting me win!'

'How do _you _know?'

'I just do, stupid.'

_He rather liked her being on top._

'Whatever you do or don't know, you'd better tell Forel there's a gap in his training somewhere, _my lady_.'

'I've _warned_ you about calling me that,' she replied, and kissed him rather fiercely, her fingers trailing lazily through his hair, wholly unconcerned that they were in public and would almost certainly be seen. He liked that.

It took every ounce of restraint he possessed to keep his lips clamped firmly shut. The insolence of it, to assume that she was capable of beating him.

_She _is _capable of beating you._

_That's not the point._

Arya's hands moved to his throat, and there was the ghost of a threat in them as she spoke again.

'Open your mouth.'

_You're going to have to do better than that, my lady._

'No.'

'Open. Your. Mouth,' she repeated, her lips teasing his as she spoke.

_Now that's not entirely fair._

'No.'

And suddenly, she had lost interest, sitting up rather suddenly and beginning to rise.

'In that case, we'd better go,' she had said, 'we're late again. Maybe if you spent a bit less time in front of the mirror, we'd actually - '

She had shrieked and laughed as he had yanked her back to earth and opened his mouth for hers. The taste of her had felt new, as it always did; strange, but intoxicating. She lay on the ground with her eyes closed, breathing quietly, and when he looked at her; he had seemed to recognise her, though not from his past.

_Who in seven hells is she, and why why why why why…_

As he softly kissed her top lip, and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, she had sighed like a child half-asleep.

'Jaime,' she had murmured, her eyes still closed, 'I love you.'

Her eyes had snapped open immediately, and her entire body had tensed up like a drawstring.

Jaime had panicked.

_Fuck. What do I do? What do I say? _

For a moment, she had looked terrified of him, like he was a beast preparing to spring. Then she had looked furious; furious at him, but largely furious at herself.

She had shoved him away from her with surprising strength and had walked away from him without a backward glance. In the weeks that followed, she had barely spoken to him. She brooded day and night; hardly seeming to perceive his presence in a room; not his; not anyone else's. He occasionally found her sister sitting with her, but Lady Sansa's face had told him clearly that should she succeed in coaxing a confidence from her sister, she would sooner die than break it.

And then there was Cersei to think of. The morning after his wedding, she had wanted to be told an infinite number of exhaustive details about the wedding night, her crimson gown as red as the wine she was drinking.

_Wine in the morning, _Jaime had thought, _never a good sign._

But he had known that Cersei wasn't really interested in any of those things. What she really wanted was for him to bite down on her mouth and tell her that he was her and she was him and that nothing would ever change. But as his twin had reached for him, he had gently pushed her away, and told her no. He loved her too much to lie to her. And telling her that he was her and she was him and that nothing would ever change would be the worst kind of lie he could tell.

Because everything _had_ changed. Because at some point in the past twelve hours, he had realised that he was not her.

The knowledge had terrified him.

It had made Cersei furious.

_You're a fool if you think you've heard the end of this,_ he remembered thinking to himself.

And he had been right.


	3. Chapter 3

One evening, Jaime had found Arya in their chambers, examining a dent in his breastplate. A gift from the Knight of Flowers, that impertinent little tulip. Jaime had almost smiled as the familiar crease between Arya's eyes had suddenly smoothed over, and she had looked up and spoken to him, really spoken to him, for the first time in weeks.

'Are you going to get this fixed?' she had asked matter-of-factly.

When Jaime had simply stared at her, too surprised to speak, she had continued unemotionally, turning the breastplate over in her hands.

'I know an armourer's apprentice on the Street of Steel,' she had said, 'a genius with a hammer. I could take you to see him.'

Jaime had winced. Having his armour dented was embarrassing enough without having it repaired by an apprentice.

'He could have his own shop if he had the coin,' Arya had drawled, guessing his thoughts, 'so turn your Lannister nose up at someone else, Jaime!'

_War is less complicated than adolescent girls._

As Jaime had watched her bobbing through the crowd the next morning; cursing, elbowing and spitting along with the rest of them, he had smiled fondly. He had smiled, but he still hadn't known.

He didn't know if he loved her. He simply didn't. All he knew of love in relation to himself, he knew from Cersei, and this was not at all the same thing. He was fond enough of her for the past few weeks to have been…difficult; he was attached enough to her to dislike being away from her; he liked sparring with her; fighting with her was glorious; and fucking her was spectacular. But what did that actually mean?

He cursed at himself to stop thinking so much as Arya's hand slipped into his and she pulled him into a shop that was almost indistinguishable from every other one on the street. A blast of unbearable heat hit him in the face as they entered the forge, and he hastily removed his cloak as Arya, hardly seeming to feel the heat at all, stomped to where a young man, rather too dark and good-looking for Jaime's comfort, was hammering at an anvil in a corner of the forge. She introduced them.

'Jaime, this is Gendry,' she said, 'he's the best smith in King's Landing, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.'

The smith kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground and mumbled a greeting, followed by a disgruntled-sounding 'Thank you, m'lady,' the sullenness of his tone concealing a glow at the heart of his voice that Jaime instinctively knew came to life when Arya was present, and at no other time.

_He's in love with her._

He searched his wife's face for any signs of mutual affection, past or present, but Arya was chatting to the smith as an equal and a friend, pulling out Jaime's breastplate and unceremoniously shoving it under Gendry's nose.

'Can you fix it?'

As the smith examined the steel, his expression appeared almost loving, and for a moment he seemed to forget that Arya and Jaime were there, his dark blue eyes drawing maps in the steel.

_A genius with a hammer indeed. With a hammer…_

Jaime's eyes flickered from the breastplate clutched in Gendry's hands, to the hammer that lay forgotten next to the anvil, and his entire being turned cold. By the time he had fully taken in the boy's face, he was enraged.

'Can you fix it?' Arya was insisting.

'Yes, m'lady,' Gendry mumbled in reply.

'How long?' Jaime asked abruptly.

Gendry mumbled something incoherent in reply, testing Jaime's patience.

'Speak up!' he barked.

_Was the boy simple?_

'A…a day, m'lord. Apologies, m'lord.'

Arya surprised Jaime by waiting till they were back on the street before hitting him.

'Don't ever speak to my friends like that again!' she pronounced adamantly.

The term 'friends' was sufficient to make Jaime's temper flare.

'It's obvious he wants more than friendship, you foolish child,' he spat.

'How do _you _know?' Arya demanded, addressing him as she would a petulant child.

She was innocent enough to make him scream.

_Remember how young she is_, he told himself soothingly, but for some reason, he was in no mood for youth and inexperience today, and he addressed her as he would a woman of his own age.

'It's obvious he wants more than friendship,' Jaime declared, 'because he never looks at you.'

Arya folded her arms and laughed at him.

'That makes _no_ sense,' she scoffed at him.

'How very _young_ you are,' Jaime replied scornfully.

The corners of her mouth were turning up, but there was no mirth in her eyes.

'Are you _jealous_, Jaime?'

'Don't flatter yourself!'

'Gods, you _are_!'

'Do I need to repeat myself? Are you hard of hearing?'

'He's just a stupid bull!'

'That's inherited.'

'What?'

'_Are you blind?_ The boy is _Robert's_!'

He was too angry to continue; too angry to see. Father had sold Cersei to that drink-sodden oaf, and he had done nothing but insult and dishonour her time and time again. Of course he had known that the King had bastards. The gods alone knew he had stood guard at enough doors to understand that. Robert had sometimes even done it deliberately. But somehow seeing one in the flesh…it had made him feel physically sick. His sister had deserved better. She had fucking deserved better, and it took every vestige of self-control in him not to go back to the shop and murder the boy where he stood.

Instead, he snapped something incoherent when Arya asked him what the matter was, and stalked away from her.

Hours would pass before it would occur to him that had he shared his thoughts with her exactly as they had come to him, she would have understood.


	4. Chapter 4

Arya paced the length and breadth of the antechamber outside Tywin Lannister's solar, listening to the sound of Cersei screeching. About her. Jaime was in there with her, but the thickness of Lord Tywin's door, coupled with Cersei's evident disinclination to let anybody else get a word in edgeways, meant that Arya had heard her husband's voice only once in the hour that she had been waiting.

Arya had no idea what she done to make the Queen hate her with such venom. She enjoyed having enemies as much as the next Northerner. They brought colour and danger to one's life. But she found that the pleasure was rather abated when she could not identify a single incident, unkind word or conversation that had transformed her good-sister from an indifferent acquaintance into…whatever this was.

Janos Slynt was waiting with her, slouching in a chair positioned opposite the one that Arya herself was meant to be occupying, listening with some amusement and laughing aloud as Cersei let out a particularly shrill yodel that could easily have been heard by half of Maegor's. Arya didn't care. She rather felt like screaming herself.

The previous day, Arya had been walking in the paved streets closest to the Red Keep when she had been passed by a raucous platoon of gold cloaks, parading a dead baby above their heads. Once she had emptied the entire contents of her stomach into a nearby sewer, she had gone among the people, quiet as a shadow, to learn why such an atrocity had occurred. She wondered if Syrio would allow her to kill the person responsible.

People were being seized all over the city, some said. All over the kingdoms, others claimed. They had drowned a little dark-haired boy before cutting his throat. A little girl with black hair had been raped and mutilated right in front of the Great Sept. A boy with hair like a raven had been seized and strangled at the Mud Gate. By gold cloaks, gold cloaks, gold cloaks each time.

Arya had run like a demon, then, not stopping until she had reached the Street of Steel. When she had found Gendry hammering unconcernedly at his anvil, she had thrown her cloak over his head without warning, ignored his protests, taken hold of his shoulders and shoved him roughly out of the back door of the forge at almost exactly the same moment that a contingent of gold cloaks had arrived at the front.

'What the fuck is going on?' the bullheaded bastard boy had demanded, his voice muffled as Arya had dragged him by the arm into the center of Flea Bottom, where riots were already starting. She had robbed the first drunken knight she had seen of his horse before riding like fury for the river. She had ignored every question Gendry had asked until they had reached the outermost point of Blackwater Bay, and could have their pick of discarded smugglers' boats. She had told him that the gold cloaks wanted to kill him (not why), shoved him into a boat, and commanded him to row away. And he had, mumbling 'Thank you, m'lady,' under his breath. When the boat had disappeared from sight, Arya had cried. She did not have many friends.

She had expected to be caught sooner. Nevertheless, it had taken more than a day for a few more of those gold-coated bastards to break down the door while she and Jaime were glowering at each other over their evening meal. When Arya had been placed under arrest for a number of offenses that included aiding a fugitive and treason, Jaime had burst out laughing.

'You really are slipping in your old age, Slynt,' he had said to the commander between guffaws, 'I'm the one who helped the bastard boy.'

Cursing her husband's stupid sense of honour, wanting to hit him on his stupid head until he understood that she did not need protection, and terrified that something would happen to him, Arya had immediately run to Lord Tywin, who had summoned Cersei, Slynt, Jaime and herself to his solar. She had counted on a good fight, and on the chance to ask Cersei what the fuck she meant by ordering the slaughter of innocents to avenge her own honour. Instead, she was trapped in this miserable antechamber with only that pasty bastard Slynt for company.

Arya concentrated once again on the voices on the other side of the door.

'The gods only know how she tricked you into this,' Cersei was saying.

'There's no trickery here except in your head, Cersei,' Jaime replied.

'Shall I explain it to you?'

'Use small words. I'm not as bright as you are.'

Arya heard Lord Tywin snort, though in derision or laughter she could not tell, as Cersei continued.

'You disappoint me, brother. The little whore has you so addicted to her tight northern cunt that you'll even risk being executed for treason to save the life of the person who makes use of it when you're not looking.'

'Oh Cersei, don't be so ridiculous.'

Arya's heart glowed at that.

'My spies have all reported it,' the Queen insisted.

'Which spies are those?' Jaime responded testily, 'Those bony little handmaidens you like so much, or that grey sunken cunt Pycelle?'

_Gendry is my _friend, _you stupid bitch, _Arya thought,_ my _friend_. Something I'm sure you don't know much about._

Lord Tywin had cut into the conversation now, and Cersei was trying, again and again, to interrupt him.

'Be quiet, Cersei,' Lord Tywin eventually snapped at her, 'I will not permit you to breathe further life into this malicious lie by discussing it. And I suggest that you acquire some new spies. It is clear that those currently in your employ suffer from the most florid delusions.'

'How can you be so _blind_, Father?'

Lord Tywin did not reply.

'Furthermore,' he continued, 'you will take your preposterous eldest son in hand and remind him that he is not King yet and has no right, therefore, to send gold cloaks into the streets to disrupt the King's peace and murder babies; nor to arrest anyone for treason.'

'Slynt should not have obeyed him.'

'Yes. I will be sure to also blame Slynt for Lady Sansa's broken arm when I see him. Now get out.'

Arya stood against the wall enveloped in black, for her sister, and for the mother of that poor baby she had seen dangling above the heads of the gold cloaks like she was some prize pig.

_What kind of a man does such a thing to a child?_

_What kind of man rapes his wife in public, while we're at it._

When Arya had heard about that, she had wanted to kill him. She'd been on her way to Joffrey's chambers, a dagger clutched in her hand, when she'd run straight into Jaime, returning with his squire from the practice yard. He had seen it in her face. He had known her, even then.

As the Queen swept past her without a word, Arya realised that she had made an enemy for life. She only wished she knew why.

A soft-spoken steward in Lannister livery pulled her from her reverie.

'Lady Arya. Lord Tywin will see you now.'


	5. Chapter 5

Jaime and Cersei irritated Lord Tywin enough on days when they chose to be friends. When they fought, they were unbearable.

Today was different. As Tywin had sat behind his desk, bored out of his mind with listening to Cersei's shrill barrage of preposterous accusations against Lady Arya, he had felt rather proud of his son, who had sat silent, deep in thought and largely oblivious to every word his sister was saying, something any serious man would have done in a similar situation. Jaime had always been the dunce of the family in Tywin's estimation. Perhaps he had been wrong about that.

Cersei had always had a vindictive streak and a total inability to distinguish the serious from the trivial, and while Tywin could imagine why a woman of Cersei's character and appearance might dislike the Stark girl, admittedly an uncouth barbarian, he was incapable of understanding the origins of his daughter's evident desire to do her harm. Cersei was behaving like a malicious first born on the arrival of a second child.

The change in Jaime, as he opened his mouth for the first time in over an hour, was extraordinary. While he retained his characteristic flippancy of expression, an attribute in both his sons that Tywin frequently despaired of, Jaime treated his sister's words with the contempt they deserved in an entirely mature manner, expressing dismissiveness, defiance, quiet threat, and protectiveness in the precious few words that he spoke. When the twins had fought in the past, their similarities had always been apparent even when screaming at each other; and commanding them to remember that they were brother and sister usually sufficed to end whatever childish dispute had caused them to be dragged up to their father's solar in the first place. Though it made Tywin indescribably angry that the twins still had to be dragged up to his solar for chastisement at their age, he was glad that this dispute had occurred, because without it, he might never have known that his son had grown up, while his daughter hadn't.

_Her favourite toy has developed a mind of its own, so she tries to tear its eyes out with her nails. Pathetic._

Tywin looked up as the young Stark girl was announced. She loitered in the shadows by the door, and did not approach.

'Come here, my child,' Tywin said warmly, surprising himself and flabbergasting Jaime, who stared openly at him like he had lost his mind.

_Had he called her his child?_

As Tywin and Jaime rose to greet her, the girl walked straight up to his son and hit him in the face.

'Don't you _ever _do something like that again!'

Jaime smiled, and kissed her on the forehead.

'You're welcome, wife.'

'I was worried,' she mumbled.

'You don't mean to tell me you thought that little shit Slynt would have the balls to try and _hurt_ me?' he grinned.

She shoved him.

'Fuck off.'

Lord Tywin had had enough of this, and cleared his throat to remind them he was there. Arya bowed awkwardly, greeted him and took her seat beside Jaime.

_They were holding hands. Was that _entirely_ necessary?_

Lord Tywin regarded his good-daughter severely.

'It is evident that Cersei is the only person in this family who still believes that Jaime was behind the smith's escape, so let us dispense with appearances. Lady Arya, you have acted like a rash little fool.'

'Like _what_?'

'To begin with, forbidding my son to protect his wife's honour, as you have just done, is a singularly foolish action on your part –'

'But I don't _need _protection!'

'Quiet, girl!'

_Such dazzling cheek. What a son she would have made._

_You are meant to be chastising her._

'You must understand that my son was not only protecting _your_ honour, but the honour of the _family_. Jaime, I forbid you to say something clever.'

His son, who had been opening his mouth in protest, glared at him, but remained silent. Lord Tywin turned to Arya again.

'You are a Lannister –'

The girl's mouth hardened in disbelief.

'I am a Stark!' she exclaimed in indignation.

_Oh dear. One of those._

'My dear child, you are a Lannister. You ceased to be a Stark the moment you were cloaked in crimson and gold.'

'But –'

'You are a Lannister in the eyes of gods and men. And_ Lannisters_ don't act like fools.'

The girl still seemed entirely unaware that she had done anything foolish.

'Fools?' she asked with genuine innocence, a hint of iron in her voice.

Lord Tywin was losing patience, and decided to be direct.

'A friendship with a commoner, and a male commoner at that, is stupid.'

'_Stupid?_'

'Yes. Stupid!'

Her temper was rising. He was getting through to her.

'You have accomplished nothing save causing yourself to be talked of with contempt!'

'By _Cersei_!'

'By the whole city, if I know my daughter at all.'

'So tell her to stop!'

Jaime snorted in derision. That was answer enough for her.

Lord Tywin swept on with his argument.

'I don't care if your only contact with this boy was the odd written note on the state of your strange little sword –'

'Gendry can't read.'

'Hold your tongue!'

The girl straightened in her chair like she'd been hit in the face. Jaime was glaring at him.

_Let him glare._

'A friendship with a commoner,' Lord Tywin stated candidly, 'is an unnatural occurrence that has brought disgrace on our family name, as has your…_ridiculous _decision to set him free. People's memory of your friendship with this boy would have been as short as his life if you had simply let the gold cloaks take him.'

'The gold cloaks weren't meant to be 'taking' anyone,' she snapped in return.

'Don't interrupt, girl. Everything you have said and done in relation to the smith has shamed our House. That is something that I will not tolerate.'

The girl was looking at him as she would at the worst kind of hypocrite.

'And what happened to Lannisters paying their debts?' she asked.

There was a long silence. His son was smiling impertinently at him.

'I came to this city when I was nine, not knowing anything of the world,' the Stark girl said, 'some people helped me, like Syrio, and…my sister, who knows more of the world than most women three times her age, thanks to your revolting grandson.'

Lord Tywin could not argue with that.

'But Gendry helped me too. He saved me from a group of men during a bread riot in Flea Bottom. They would have raped me and cut my throat open if it wasn't for him. I was ten.'

_What in the name of all the gods had she been doing in Flea Bottom? At the age of _ten?

'He stopped me each time I wanted to run away. I always wanted to run away. He's talked me out of killing that sadistic little cunt Joffrey for hurting my sister more times than you can imagine. I owed Gendry a debt and I paid it. Don't Lannisters always pay their debts?'

_She was magnificent. Why hadn't this match occurred to him before? She could have been betrothed at eleven, married at thirteen, and a mother by now. _

_But he wouldn't tell her that._

'This is all very touching, child, apart from one thing,' he said coldly, 'in each instance you have stated, the boy only seems to have saved you from yourself. You should think on that.'

_He had her. _

She stared at the floor without replying, her eyes seeming to glaze over. Jaime was looking daggers at him, his mouth a grim line as he ground his teeth.

'Your wife is tired,' Lord Tywin said to him, 'You should see her to your chambers.'


	6. Chapter 6

'I hear you're fucking Osmund Kettleback.'

'Yes, indeed. His cock is so long that he doesn't even have to call one of his brothers if he feels like stuffing me double.'

Arya and Bran burst into gales of hysterical laughter before howling up at the sky like wolves, sending clouds of frightened birds flying out of the trees and up towards the clouds.

'You know Father will be furious when he finds out we came here without a guard,' Bran had remarked conspiratorially when they had arrived.

'Have no fear, little brother,' Arya had replied with equal candour, 'I'll protect us from the birds and the insects.'

They were ahorse in the furthest, remotest corner of the tourney grounds and miles from the Red Keep, loosing arrows into whatever targets they chose. It hadn't taken Arya long to realise that Bran was better than her. The knowledge did not hurt.

'It's alright, really,' Bran said, taking aim, 'nobody believes a word the Queen says.'

'Jaime does,' Arya mumbled, staring at the ground.

Bran hooted in delight as his arrow struck the required leaf on the required tree branch before turning his horse about to face her.

'What do you mean, 'Jaime does'?'

'I can see it in the way he looks at me.'

'"I can see it in the way he looks at me!"' Bran imitated shrilly, 'you're being paranoid.'

Arya snorted.

'I thought you didn't like him.'

Bran shrugged.

'I don't.'

'So why are you defending him?'

'I'm not. It's your turn.'

She missed, and cursed. Bran drew another arrow from his quiver without comment.

'The Queen can say whatever she wants,' Bran pronounced soothingly, 'but Jaime loves you.'

'No, he doesn't.'

'Oh yes, he does. It's absolutely disgusting. That stupid grin on his face whenever he sees you shouldn't be allowed.'

'So why doesn't he fucking well say as much?' Arya demanded, loosing another arrow as Bran's gracefully met its mark. She missed again.

'You girls always expect the earth, that's the problem.'

'We do not.'

'Oh yes you do.'

She drew, and aimed at him.

'If you're going to shoot me, please make it somewhere painful so the maester will give me milk of the poppy,' Bran joked, 'that way I might actually get some sleep.'

Sometimes Arya felt that Bran was her older brother instead of it being the other way round. Coming to King's Landing after recovering from his fall had been good for him, but dark circles from lack of sleep still stained the delicate skin beneath his eyes, even after all this time. The redness of his eyes on this particular morning suggested that the previous night had also been one without sleep. Arya felt guilty. She had hardly seen him since her wedding, and he only seemed to have gotten worse.

'Are you still dreaming about that bloody three-eyed crow?' she asked.

Bran nodded mutely.

Arya mussed his hair.

'Try putting me into your dream. I'll kill the bastard for you.'

Bran did not laugh, and Arya stared at him awkwardly, not understanding.

'By the way,' Bran remarked abruptly, 'is your husband usually so shy around people he doesn't know well?'

'I don't think Jaime knows what 'shy' means, brother,' Arya laughed, 'Why?'

'He punched someone's teeth in at the practice yard this morning.'

Arya's jaw dropped.

'What? Why?'

'They were gossiping about you and Osmund Kettleback.'

'There is _nothing _going on between me and bloody Osmund Kettleback!'

Bran rolled his eyes.

'I _know_, Arya! Anyway, Jaime punched this person so hard that they couldn't get his helmet off his head; so once I'd stopped laughing, I rode over to Ser Jaime and congratulated him on his aim.'

'And?'

'He looked at me like…I don't know, it was strange. He didn't seem very well. So he said thank you and walked away.'

'Just like that?'

'Yes.'

'I'm confused.'

'So am I.'

'So why don't you look it?'

Bran's face was all wrong. It had been wrong from the moment he had begun to tell his story. He hadn't once spoken with the baffled openness of a person who only knew one half of the anecdote they were telling. He had spoken with the authority and confidence of the person who had written it.

Bran was looking at her with – was it expectation? Hope? _Fear?_

_What does he want me to say?_

'Bran – are you trying to tell me something?'

Arya could have sworn that her brother's eyes had filled with tears for a moment, for the tiniest, most fleeting instant of a moment. But then he had laughed and slapped her on the shoulder.

'I feel like practicing with real targets,' he said, spurring his horse ahead, 'I'll race you!'


	7. Chapter 7

Jaime couldn't believe it. He had been so certain of her, more certain than he had ever been of anything else in his life. And yet there the piece of parchment was, still clutched in his fist, crumpled into a ball by now. Perhaps he had hoped that the damn thing would simply disappear if he wished hard enough.

Cersei had handed it to him that morning with an unholy kind of triumph in her eyes. His fingers had brushed hers briefly in the exchange…ever so briefly…but somehow it had felt like being scourged.

'Don't touch me,' he had murmured, taking a step back.

Perhaps he deserved this. He spent more time fighting with Arya than anything else. He made her angry. He made her miserable. She did the same to him.

_She's not unhappy _all _the time. Neither am I. We _do_ have a good laugh every now and then. But sometimes I wonder…if this is the price. For what I've done. For my sins. _

The door clanked shut, as it always did when Arya entered the room, and Jaime heard her remove her cloak and dump something onto the floor.

'I heard the strangest thing about you from Bran today,' she declared loudly, 'is it true that…'

He turned to face her, and she froze where she was.

'Jaime, what's happened?'

_Maybe it's not true. Maybe you're wrong. Hold back for a moment. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it._

His traitorous tongue ignored him.

'What's this?' he demanded, tossing the crumpled parchment at her.

She caught it neatly, but to his annoyance, did not look at it immediately. Her head was cocked to one side, like she was listening for something.

'Did you hear that?'

'Hear what?'

But she had succeeded in unfolding the parchment, and her breath had caught in her throat, and her eyes were growing darker and darker as she read it.

'This is written in my hand,' she said quietly.

'I know,' Jaime replied.

'It even sounds like me.'

'I know.'

The question hung agonisingly in the air between them. She was waiting for him to laugh; to say something clever; to ridicule such a stupid joke. But not a syllable escaped his lips, and eventually, she spoke first, articulate as ever.

'Fuck you.'

'Fuck _me?' _Jaime hissed, 'Obviously not, by the sound of things!'

She threw the parchment back at him, clearly wishing it was a morning star, her eyes blazing in anger.

'Take this back and shove it up your arse, Jaime!'

He wanted to strangle her.

'You're actually _denying_ it?'

'I don't know! Why don't you scuttle off to Varys or Littlefinger to confirm your findings and ask me again afterwards? My word clearly isn't enough for you, so get out. GET OUT!'

She tried to shove him towards the door, but the vast difference between them in terms of weight and height made her abandon that strategy very quickly. Jaime would have laughed if he hadn't felt so miserable.

'I'm not moving until you answer me, Arya!'

'Fuck _off_!' came the inevitable reply.

'Do not speak to me in that tone, wife!'

'You deserve worse than 'tone', you bloody fool! I don't know what I should be angriest about – that you actually think I'm fucking Osmund Kettleback, or that you think I like it enough to write him letters! Where did you get this?'

'From Cersei.'

In his mind, that particular declaration had sounded confident and solid. The words that came tumbling out of his mouth sounded pathetic.

Arya shared his sentiments.

'You got this from Cersei and you think it's _real?_' she screeched.

'It certainly _looks_ real!' he shouted back at her.

'Maybe your father _was _right when he called you the dunce of the family.'

The last person Jaime wanted to talk about was his father.

'Don't you bring that old shit into this!'

'Why not? He clearly knows me better than you do.'

'Nobody knows you better than I do.'

_Why the fuck had he said that?_

Arya was waving her arms around dramatically, telling him precisely what she thought of that particular statement.

'"Nobody knows you better than I do." Is that supposed to impress me, make me so wet I'll do whatever you want? Oh, for fuck's sake, _did you hear that?_'

'Hear _what_?'

Perhaps she was going mad. Or perhaps she simply wanted to annoy him. He knew from previous experience that it was probably the latter.

'If you're trying to distract me, you're doing a very bad job,' he observed mockingly.

She laughed in his face.

'I don't need to 'distract' you. You're doing that all by yourself.'

'Did you write this letter?' Jaime growled.

'I can't believe you,' Arya murmured, almost under her breath. She looked ready to burst into tears.

'_Did you write it?_' he pressed.

Her eyes were terrifying, like the cold breath of winter freezing the seas.

'Don't pretend that you'd give a fuck if I did!' she snapped, 'the only reason you tolerate me is because you like fucking me. Maybe you and Ser Osmund should take turns putting me up during the day!'

'Oh now I want to kill you, you mad little bitch.'

'Not as much as I want to kill you!'

'_Did you write this?_'

'Will you please die so I can piss on your tomb?'

'Answer me before I piss on yours!'

'Did you hear that?'

Jaime nearly screamed in frustration.

'Hear _what?_ What – what are you doing?'

His wife had yanked an axe from the pile of wood next to the fire, and for perhaps three seconds, Jaime had said his final prayers as she had walked towards him holding the axe ominously at her side. Arya had stormed straight past him, however, before approaching a wooden panel at the far wall of the room and savagely swinging the axe at it, sending clouds of dust and splinters flying into the air.

_Her immaturity was beyond belief._

'Brilliant!' Jaime yelled as Arya continued to enthusiastically obliterate the wall, 'Explain to me how destroying the wall helps at all!'

A shrill squeal answered his question as Arya reached into the hole she had made and tugged hard, wrenching a fully-grown man out of the gap.


	8. Chapter 8

Cersei Lannister leapt to her feet in alarm as the doors of her apartments were flung open with a crash. The sound was swiftly followed by the Stark girl, who appeared to be dragging a large, bloodied, protesting mass behind her as though it weighed nothing. Only when he rolled onto the carpet did Cersei recognise her spy.

She searched the Stark girl's eyes for signs of triumph or glee, for memories that she could call up in the dead of night to remind herself that her work was evidently not yet done. But the filthy little barbarian's face revealed nothing at all as she kicked the man in the ribs, ordered him to be silent, and began to speak.

'He's Braavosi,' the little bitch said, as though delivering a lecture, 'an expert in forgery and mimicry used by the Iron Bank to manipulate the value of money and to fuck over debtors who don't pay up. They can destroy a man's reputation with one letter, or one conversation. Syrio calls them 'silly little vengeance somebodies,' because they're good for nothing but causing trouble. He also says there's no difference between employing one and being one. Both are equally dishonourable, and both are equally pathetic. I suppose I should be glad you hired one. If you'd sent a Faceless Man, I'd be on the carpet right now instead of him. Except I'd be dead…and a Faceless Man would sooner die than be clumsy enough to get caught.'

The man now appeared to be praying (apparently to any god that would listen) in a lyrical, yet garbled-sounding tongue that set Cersei's teeth on edge. The Stark girl kicked him again, the same outlandish sounds rolling off her tongue as menacingly as they would escape the mouth of a serpent, and the muttering stopped. Cersei looked down at him, and her eyes spoke to his.

_I will have your eyes out for this, I will have you scourged, branded, gelded, raped, if I can manage it…_

And with that, she began to wonder where her guards had got to.

'It's an awful lot of trouble to go to, for one person, Your Grace,' the Stark girl continued thoughtfully, 'not for me, I mean. For Jaime.'

Hearing Jaime's name in this child's mouth made Cersei sick to the stomach. It was a form of pollution, a kind of degradation that she could not tolerate.

_He is me. He is mine._

'Call him by a familiar again and I'll have your tongue out,' Cersei spat.

The girl paid her no mind and continued to speak.

'Lions don't concern themselves with the opinions of the sheep. I don't think hearing me called 'whore' by half of Westeros made you happy at all. All you wanted was to hear it from him. I won't ask why, because there's only so much bullshit I can listen to in one day. But your so-called spies clearly weren't convincing him. So you engaged this fool instead. You should ask for your money back.'

Cersei's lip curled into a sneer, and she looked down at the quivering, praying mass of flesh at her feet with the most spectacular contempt.

'I have never seen this commoner before in my life.'

The Stark girl took two steps towards her, bringing them eye-to-eye. There was a kind of flame in the little bitch's eyes that reminded her of a ghost.

'I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that you have, your Grace,' the little savage assured her, 'because in the North, we like to play a game with our more undeserving prisoners. It's called 'which body part do you need the least?' Works every time.'

It was only after the girl had stormed out of the room that Cersei would notice that three of the man's fingers were missing.


	9. Chapter 9

'You have always had anger in you,' Catelyn Stark observed grimly, tugging at a particularly stubborn knot in Arya's hair, 'but today I can scarcely recognise you.'

Arya glared at her mother's reflection in the mirror, and asked impatiently what she meant.

Mother spoke severely.

'I mean that I never thought the day would come when you would enjoy cruelty.'

Arya was almost too exhausted to argue. She'd spent the entire afternoon with that bloody Braavosi, then Cersei, then Lord Tywin, then both of them. And now she was still expected to attend some stupid private family dinner for Joffrey's name day before the beginning of the formal festivities tomorrow.

Before that afternoon, Arya had never tortured a prisoner in her life. She had poked and prodded like an amateur until the spy had begun to laugh at her. At that point, she had started lopping off fingers, and the laughs had been replaced by screams. She had not enjoyed it. _She hadn't._

'I don't enjoy cruelty, Mother,' Arya denied in a soft voice.

Mother's eyes were indigo in the candlelight as she continued to speak.

'Ser Jaime told me that the man confessed after you cut off one index finger.'

Arya shrugged.

'He did.'

'Then why did you feel the need to take two more?'

Arya was silent.

Mother began to braid her hair, tugging rather harder than was necessary. Arya wanted to snap at her. Braids were so stupid. They accomplished nothing. Rhaenys Targaryen had always worn her hair long and undressed, and people had still thought _she _was beautiful.

_You are not Rhaenys Targaryen, and you're a fool if you think you are beautiful._

'I'll tell you what I think, child,' Mother remarked, 'either you have lost your mind, which seems unlikely at your age, or you are too far gone to care what you do. Which is it?'

Arya's eyes met her mother's in the mirror, but still she could not reply; her mind in the dungeon, with the prisoner, with the knife. Jaime had tried to stop her, to reason with her, to speak to her, to help her countless times as she had dragged the spy down to the dungeons. Each time, she had either screamed at him or growled at him to keep away. Eventually, when he would not leave her be, she had swiped at him with the dagger she was holding to the man's throat, cutting him deeply from the tip of his thumb to his wrist. He had left her alone after that, perhaps because he had known that she wanted to do far worse to him.

When she had chained the prisoner to the wall, and hit him, and cut him, and mutilated him, she had seen nothing but Jaime as he had turned to face her; nothing but the knowledge on his face that she had betrayed him. She had seen no doubt; no uncertainty. He had not believed her, and she had wanted to die.

She couldn't die, though. Sansa needed her. But chained to the wall in front of her was a man that _could_ die, a man that she could kill slowly and painfully, and nobody would miss him.

Mother's hands were on her shoulders, her fingers long and thin. It was the only thing that Arya had inherited from her.

'Look at what that family has done to you, my child.'

Arya shrugged her Mother's hands off.

'You sacrificed me to them like some prize pig at a market. _You_ did this. I am what you made me.'

'The King –'

Arya wanted to take Mother's stupid fishy values of family, duty and honour and wipe her arse with them.

'This was never about the King,' Arya declared, 'if Father knew how to say no to him, none of this would have happened. He should have said no to being Hand of the King; he should have said no to this stupid marriage. Now I'm chained for life to a man who thinks I'm a whore. Father must be so proud.'

'If Ser Jaime truly believes that –'

'He does.'

'– then he is the stupidest man that ever lived.'

Arya turned in her seat to look at her Mother, not trusting her words. Sansa had always been the golden child, the daughter who lit her candles, learned her courtesies and said her prayers like a proper lady; the future queen who did no wrong and said no wrong no matter what was done to her. Sansa was the Stark daughter who deserved praise like that, not her. But Mother was sitting next to her on the narrow bench, and taking her hand, and speaking to her, her words so sincere that they brooked no argument.

'I remember the first time I saw you fight,' Mother said, smiling at the memory, 'the night before, I had arrived from Winterfell with Bran, and you and Sansa had come to greet us. I had seen neither of you for almost a year. Sansa looked radiant. A true daughter of the South. But you…I had never seen you looking so unhappy. You looked like… a winter rose that had been left out to die in the deserts of Dorn.'

Arya blinked. She had never been compared to a rose before.

'The next day, your father took me to your dancing lesson. We stood at the door together; Ned watching your arm, and I your face. You looked so fierce and full of fire, so certain, so alive, and I rejoiced. You were married to that weapon; married to fighting. You loved it more than anything. It was your refuge from the world that you evidently hated. It was your voice. And I remember wishing with all my soul that Ned and I would be able to find you a husband that you could respect in that way; that could command those feelings in you. In that respect, Ser Jaime is right for you. But today I have realised that I was wrong to rejoice, in spite of how happy your dancing has made you, because you only seem to think in terms of conflict; of you against the world.'

Mother took both her hands.

'You do not need to hold a sword in your hand to make people listen to you. If all the blades in the world were melted down, my child, you would still be beautiful.'

Arya thought of the Braavosi she had tortured, and suddenly wanted to cry.

'I'm crap,' she murmured, tears welling up in her eyes.

'Don't _ever_ say that,' Mother urged, starting to cry too.

'I'm a _monster_.'

Mother seized both her shoulders and looked at her very seriously.

'You are a Stark of Winterfell, and my dearest beloved child. And if Ser Jaime cannot see your beauty, then fuck him.'

Arya gaped. She had never heard Mother swear before. She rather liked it, and said so.

They sat together for a while, laughing and giggling through their tears, and Arya remembered, for the first time in so long, how much she loved her, and how much she missed her now that she had her own life.

Mother kissed the top of Arya's head, and picked up the two gowns that her daughter had thrown onto the floor earlier that evening.

'Now then,' Catelyn said, 'shall we dress you in red or blue?'


	10. Chapter 10

'I know why Father forced me to marry her,' Jaime said to Tyrion, after downing his eighth flagon of wine, 'he picked her especially to punish me. To make me _pay_!'

Tyrion, equally drunk, considered the question thoughtfully, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.

'Why would Father do that, dear brother?'

Jaime leaned towards Tyrion and whispered conspiratorially.

'He knows about me and Cersei. He _knows_.'

Tyrion belched, making Jaime wrinkle his nose.

'If he did, he wouldn't send you a wife. He'd send you poison and a dagger and tell you to pick one. To Father!'

Jaime raised his cup in response.

'To the mean old bastard himself!'

Both drank deeply.

They were alone in the small hall, a miniature cask of wine broken open on the table in front of them, praying fervently that the rest of the family would never arrive. Joffrey's name day celebrations. What a bloody farce.

'Shouldn't we be toasting Joffrey?' Tyrion suggested suddenly, 'it being his name day?'

To Jaime, this seemed a most excellent idea.

'To Joffrey!' he roared.

'May his withered little cock fall off!' Tyrion countered.

Jaime almost upset the cask in his eagerness to refill his flagon.

'More wine, brother?' he proposed, bowing in his seat.

'Please!' Tyrion accepted, bowing back.

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of glugging and swallowing as the brothers poured more Arbour gold down their throats, hoping that the numbness in their limbs would soon spread to their chests, and hopefully their memories as well.

'What _is _it with the women of that confounded family?' Jaime grumbled indignantly, 'the one's trained up so nice and docile that she'll kiss your arse if you kick her; the other so…wild…that she'll kick you in the arse if you kiss her.' He frowned. 'Should I take up poetry? _Tyrion_!'

His brother had stumbled to his feet and hit him.

'Sansa is _not _'trained up nice and docile!' She is…a great beauty with a spirit as strong as…as strong as…'

Jaime filled his flagon for him.

'Have another drink!'

'Thank you!'

They clanked their cups together, drank deeply, and plunked the empty flagons onto the table again.

Jaime's head was spinning. He didn't usually drink. But when Tyrion had arrived a few minutes earlier, slamming a casket of wine onto the table in front of him and roaring 'Drink with me!' it had seemed like the best thing to have happened all day. Jaime adored his little brother. He had the most exquisite sense of occasion.

'Why are you still wearing that doublet?' Tyrion was asking him, looking him up and down with distaste.

'Because my wife has threatened to kill me if I return to our chambers,' Jaime replied candidly, 'I am protecting my –'

'What have you done to your wife that she is so keenly interested in taking your life?'

Jaime frowned. The question was too complicated to answer, but he could try.

'She informs me that it has something to do with my being a 'motherfucker'.'

Tyrion seemed to understand this.

'Ah. Well, you've done enough to ensure she'll plague you into an early grave if you don't apologise.'

That made Jaime rather cross.

'I _have _apologised.'

'Shouting 'I'm sorry' while she's trying to cut your fingers off doesn't count as an apology!'

Why was his little brother so clever? It wasn't _fair_!

'Then what should I do,' Jaime asked him, 'according to your great wisdom and experience?'

Tyrion shrugged.

'Tell her that you detest yourself for offending her, fall at her feet, kiss them, and beg for mercy.'

'I need another drink.'

'No, you don't,' a commanding voice declared firmly, and both Jaime and Tyrion swore as their father removed the wine from the table and ordered that his sons be served strong tea instead.

And suddenly they were no longer alone, and Jaime was assailed by clouds of familiar faces that stared at him and looked away from him in the low light saying Kingslayer oathbreaker; Robert wine-skin Baratheon, Cersei who had once been him, the _honourable_ Ned Stark and his she-wolf wife, Tommen and Myrcella who were his and were not his, that vicious little cunt Joffrey dressed in a preposterous cloth of gold tunic and Lady Sansa the half-dead, looking glorious in dark lavender trimmed in silver. There were not so many people, really, but Jaime fancied himself caught in a swarm of bees that wanted to sting him, but didn't consider him enough of a threat to do so immediately. Cursing his own weakness, he took a sip of that ridiculous tea that Father was forcing him to drink. To his surprise, his head began to clear.

The younger Stark boy arrived on horseback as he always did, like the things I do for love and the tower and the fall, but was this time accompanied by Arya, who looked terrifyingly beautiful in a severely-cut crimson brocade gown, riding astride beside her brother with the effortless precision of a _Khaleesi _of the Dothraki.

_Seven hells, but I love that girl like a sunrise, _Jaime thought to himself, _I love her like a fucking sunrise. Whatever that means._

Arya vaulted out of the saddle without even creasing her dress, undid the straps that bound her brother's legs, and eased him off his horse into their father's waiting arms. She curtseyed to Robert and Cersei, kissed her sister on the cheek, mumbled some memorised courtesy at Joffrey, and sat down with the Starks at their end of the table without looking at Jaime once.

Never before had Jaime attended a feast at which each group of guests had been so keen to avoid all the others. Conversation was minimal, formal, and largely empty, and he thanked all the gods for Robert and Joffrey, who took turns regaling each other with hunting stories at the tops of their voices; Tommen and Myrcella's constant laughs of delight even succeeding in banishing the more noxious traces of poison from the hall's atmosphere. The conversation naturally turned from hunting to women, and then to whether or not the two should be combined, and Joffrey was soon telling a ridiculous story of how Lady Arya had once narrowly escaped being maimed by a boar, only to be rescued by the precision of Joffrey's spear.

As laughter rang out from the floors to the rafters, and Jaime watched his little wife close her eyes and mutter under her breath, clearly trying to contain herself, Lady Sansa cleared her throat and spoke.

'Forgive me, my lord, but that is not how I remember it. It was the other way round.'

Silence fell immediately as Joffrey looked at his wife, unconcerned.

'Did you say something, my lady?'

Lady Sansa's eyes were wide, terrified by her own boldness. Jaime felt Tyrion tense up next to him, muttering to himself, again and again.

'Speak no further, my fair, courageous child, please speak no further –'

But Lady Sansa could not hear him.

'I too was present on that particular hunt, my lord,' she repeated, 'and though I am but a young girl who knows little of the ways of men, I distinctly remember how my lord was unhorsed by a boar larger than any I had ever seen, and how great was the fear I felt in that moment, for I could not aid him. My sister, hearing my screams, emerged from the trees like a miracle, and took the beast down with one thrust of her spear.'

Jaime seized Tyrion's arm as his brother attempted to leave his chair and intervene.

'Let go,' Tyrion growled at him.

'The seven gods together cannot save her now,' Jaime growled in reply.

'What did you say?' Joffrey was demanding adamantly.

Lady Sansa was trembling so violently that she might have had the shaking sickness, and as Jaime gently restrained his brother, his eyes met Eddard Stark's, who was doing the same to his wife, and to his youngest daughter.

'_What did you _say_?_' Joffrey screamed.

'Sit down and have a drink, Joff!' Robert roared, 'and I'll tell you about that bloody lion I gutted last month! The bastard killed three of my men before I could get to him!'

For some reason, Joffrey genuinely seemed to be interested in hearing about Robert and his lion (invented no doubt, just to annoy Father) and sat down again, pulling his chair in and bumping the table as Lady Sansa seized a pitcher of wine from one of the servants and began to pour. Her wine glass toppled over, spilling its contents into Joffrey's lap.

_Oh, fuck_.

'You stupid _whore_!' Joffrey screeched, leaping to his feet once more and striking his wife with the back of his hand, leaving an angry red mark on her cheek as she bowed her head immediately, not looking at him.

Wine ran in red rivulets from Joffrey's waist right down to his knees, staining the gold cloth. Jaime would have smiled, had he still known how to smile. It looked like his nephew had been gelded.

'You filthy little _bitch_!' Joffrey swore, 'No _wonder _your baby died inside you with a clumsy whore like you for a mother.'

Jaime heard nothing but the roar of his own breathing; felt nothing but Tyrion slipping out of the seat next to him as silence fell over the entire hall; remembered nothing but the sound of that awful day when that poor girl had lost her first born. The bells of the Great Sept had tolled solemnly again and again, until Lady Sansa, her shift still bloodied and her eyes red from crying, had opened the window of her chambers and had screamed for silence.

Lady Sansa remained where she was, staring demurely at her plate, her auburn hair a glorious corona of light around her head, her fingers closing gracefully around her fork. Slow and beautiful as a sunset, she turned to Joffrey, and plunged the fork into his neck.

The hall erupted into pandemonium as she stabbed him once, twice, three times, four times. Guards were running towards the table, and servants were running away from it, Joffrey was falling and Cersei was screaming and suddenly Arya was there, knocking the fork out of her sister's hand and pulling her away from Joffrey.

'Sansa! Get off him; you'll kill him!'

'Let go of me!'

'They'll have your head!'

'Let me _go_, Arya!'

To Jaime's considerable disappointment, Joffrey wasn't even badly hurt, one of the blows having pierced his lower neck, and the rest having glanced off his doublet. His face and his voice were atrocious to behold, and he was screeching at the Kingsguard to kill his wife as Robert roared at them to do nothing of the sort.

'What are you _doing_?' Joffrey howled, 'I want this bitch executed!'

Robert hit him, sending him flying comically back into his chair.

'If word of this gets out, you'll be a laughing stock for the rest of your life, you bloody fool!' Robert thundered.

Joffrey, clearly still believing that the choice was his, danced an obscene jig of indecision in his chair before heeding his father's words and turning once again to Sansa, who was still being restrained by Arya.

'Looks like the gods love me more than you and your mongrel child!'

'Burn in hell!' Sansa screamed, before Tyrion reached her at last and took her hand gently, his presence soothing her immediately.

In that moment, Cersei once again found her voice and her will.

'The girl is as wild as her sister,' she spat, 'she should be flogged immediately.'

'Quiet, woman!' Robert roared.

'And what is to be done? What is usually done when someone attempts to kill the son of a king?' Cersei demanded mockingly.

'The girl is much too frail to be flogged, damn you!' Robert bellowed.

'She should be _executed_!' Cersei bellowed back.

At this point, Bran, in tears and clearly unable to support the idea of his sister being punished, interjected, the sweetness in his voice unbearable to Jaime's ears.

'Please, Your Grace, there must be another way!' Bran begged.

'Hold your tongue, cripple!' Cersei spat.

Jaime hardly had time to realise the extreme cruelty of that statement, or to feel his chest crushed by the searing guilt and self-loathing that possessed him each time he looked upon the boy, before his wife had flown forward and had punched Cersei full in the face.

Jaime could see nothing but Arya, his legs not moving, his mouth not opening. Ned Stark was seizing the back of her dress and demanding that she apologise, and Cersei was screaming for her to be whipped, and Lord Stark was looking at Robert with pleading eyes and Robert was looking back at him, his face giving the answer already known to Lord Stark: that a whipping was a mild punishment indeed for striking a queen. And Arya was still refusing to look at Jaime as the guards approached, and her hands were clutched protectively over her stomach as she watched them coming, and she screamed and fought as they tore her hands away, seized her elbows and dragged her from the hall.

And suddenly Jaime was on his feet in terror and disbelief and anger at himself for being such a blind bloody fool, and pushing through that small but somehow mob-like group of people who were now milling about the hall or leaving it. Robert was flinging the doors open and storming away swearing, and Jaime was fighting his way to Cersei as she moved to follow her husband, seizing her arm and yanking her around to face him. She was a woman. She would understand.

'Arya's pregnant,' Jaime panted.

His heart was fear and joy and desperation and hope and cold, dark terror as his twin looked at him scornfully, and took a step backwards.

'Don't touch me,' she replied, and swept from the hall.


	11. Chapter 11

'When I was nine, Syrio taught me something,' Arya said, her eyes not leaving her lap, 'I was too young and stupid to understand, of course, but…'

'What did he teach you?' Jaime asked quietly.

Arya's eyes flickered to his.

'"There is only one god, and his name is Death,"' Arya recited, '"and there is only one thing we say to Death. "Not today."''

Jaime said nothing.

'I prayed to the god of Death today,' Arya continued, 'and he heard my prayers.'

_She had muttered nothing but 'not today not today not today' as Jaime had carried her back to their chambers, the maester in tow, her back looking like a carcass in a butcher's shop. The maester had given her potion after potion for the pain and the shock, shouting at Jaime to build up the fire, and at the servants to bring more blankets._

'_Maester,' Arya had asked again and again, 'do you see any blood?'_

'_I see none, child,' he had replied kindly, 'but you are not out of danger yet.'_

_An honest man. Jaime liked that._

_She had reached out and gripped his shoulders with her hands when the maester had begun to work on her back, her knuckles whitening as salves were applied. She had looked at Jaime like today had never happened, and smiled, and bitten savagely on her teeth to keep herself from crying. She stared down into her lap continuously, terrified of seeing blood._

'_If we lose our child today,' Jaime had said quietly, 'I will kill every single one of them.'_

_Arya had surprised him by kissing him, softly and for a very long time, her lips warm and delirious._

'_Thank you,' she had whispered._

'_Thank you?' he had whispered back, 'I expected you to tell me you could do it yourself.'_

'_I mean thank you,' Arya had replied, 'for saying 'we' instead of 'you.''_

_When Arya had said _that_ to him, Jaime had become fairly positive that he was going to burst into tears for the first time in thirty years, and he had bowed his head immediately, damned if he was going to show weakness in front of his wife when she needed him to be strong for her. This particular wife, furthermore, was more likely to laugh at him than be touched._

_But the tears had not disappeared, and he had closed his eyes to disperse them, keeping his head bowed, praying that she would look at her lap and not at his face. But Arya had leaned forward and put her thin arms around his neck, drawing him closer to her and resting her small head on top of his. Her chest was drenched in sweat, and she was shuddering weakly, which had only made him feel worse. _

They sat facing each other now, long after the maester had left them, Arya still looking into her lap.

'Do you see any –'

'No, my stubborn wolf child. I do not see any blood.'

He wanted to speak to her, to ask her a thousand questions, to know what was happening inside her. But asking would make her remember what he had said and done, and that meant he would have to apologise. Jaime was not good at apologising. Somehow, it always seemed to make things worse.

'How long have you known?' he asked eventually

'About a week,' she replied.

'And…I suppose you'll hit me if I ask why you didn't tell me.'

To his astonishment, Arya was shaking her head emotionally.

'I thought that if I told you, you would think that – you would think that –'

_Oh gods. Name me the Lord Paramount of fools and be done with it. _

'Jaime, my _back_!' Arya yelped in pain, squirming and wincing when he suddenly embraced her like he would never see her again.

'I'm so sorry,' Jaime blurted, his hands moving from her back to her face, 'I'm _so _sorry. I have acted like –'

'An unmitigated arse and a true Lannister, yes,' Arya interrupted, her voice breaking, her beautiful grey eyes like the rain, 'but I know that Cersei is your sister. Who can you trust, if not your own blood? She loves you, she must be –'

'No. If she loved me, she would have died sooner than do this to you.'

Arya tried to make light of her injuries, shrugging and mumbling something about a dancing lesson tomorrow, but Jaime would not let the subject drop.

'Robert deserves to be sent to the deepest of the seven hells for taking such a risk,' he growled, 'Whipping a woman who is with child is the worst kind of –'

He paused as Arya grinned at him courageously, her tears shining on her face.

'If you think that any child with your and my blood running in its veins would falter from so meager a thing as a whipping, you've got another thing coming, Lannister.'

The joy in her eyes was extraordinary, glowing with a kind of ecstasy that Jaime had only ever seen when fighting her, and though she now sat before him unarmed, unarmoured, vulnerable and in pain, Arya Stark had never seemed so fiercely, euphorically, beautifully alive to him as she did in that moment.

'Arya,' Jaime said, waking up inside, 'I love you.'

Notes

That's it, beautiful people! Thanks for the amazing support, you have been inspirational!

Last line is inspired by/ stolen from Evanescence, because I could not resist.

Valar Morghulis and goodnight!


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